Chinwendu Obienyi
The Lagos Commodity and Futures Exchange (LCFE), being promoted by the Lagos State Government and Association of Stockbroking Companies of Nigeria (ASHON) may commence operations soon as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has granted the promoters approval-in principle.
By this milestone, the new Exchange is expected to commence operation immediately, after the ongoing installation of its state of the art technology now at the concluding phase.
Commenting on the recent development, ASHON’s Chairman, Chief Patrick Ezeagu, expressed gratitude to SEC for the opportunity. He assured the Commission that ASHON had been working very hard to complete the installation of the technology in order to commence trading.
For his part, LCFE’s Acting Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Akin Akeredolu-Ale described the approval as a welcome development.
According to him, it shows the level of dynamic capacity of the apex regulator to empoweracapital market operators to play pivotal role in capital formation and wealth creation. Akeredolu-Ale underscored the essence of capacity building in order to improve efficiency and service delivery.
He explained that the trading floor of the new corporate office of LCFE at Niger House, Broad Street, Lagos was already wearing a new look as trading technologies, including control room and servers are being installed.
There are strong indications that capital market professionals, including the capital market correspondents shall undergo a new phase of strategic training model by the LCFE as part of the preparations to go
Chief Ezeagu had at a training session last yeexplained that the core objective was to develop the much-needed capacity that would operate in the coming Commodity and Futures Exchange which ASHON is leading the establishment.
Ezeagu noted that every aspect of the capital market had been undergoing changes, hence , the human capital that would operate in the new environment must have the skills and competition.
“The market is expanding and the various kinds of market we are operating are equally changing as
well. From the purely equities market, we are moving into bonds and from bonds we are thinking about commodities and derivatives.
There is lack of capacity by members of ASHON and we have decided upon ourselves that the best approach is to build capacity from within. We must key into these changes that are taking place to play our role as intermediaries within the market space,” Ezeagu said.